As a part of our All Decorating All The Time weekend, the Mister and I tackled the garage. Again. For the four thousandth time. You'd think we could just do the darn thing and be done with it, but no, like a bad penny, it keeps turning up again.
Here is what we started with. My goal is to be able to park one car in the garage eventually.
You'll notice large piles of crap all in the middle of the garage.
Here's what it looked like when we were done.
You'll notice large piles of crap in the middle of the garage. Lisa, you are thinking, that looks exactly the same. BUT NO--there are DRAMATIC differences!
Note that this Expedit was originally on the far wall of the garage.
We started by emptying it--and pretty much everything else in the middle of the garage--and dragging it out to the driveway.
On the top of the Expedit we had stored a bunch of unused lamps, and I was worried where we were going to store them after we got rid of the Expedit, but figured it would work itself out.
Yep, it worked itself out. Two more things I don't have to store.
To keep this snoozefest post from getting even more boring, essentially what I did was drag everything out onto the driveway, and everything that I wanted to keep I put back on the far wall. Everything I wanted to get rid of, I dragged back in and put in a large pile of crap in the middle.
Thus, all that stuff in the middle of the garage? Needs to be disposed of via craigslist, ebay or donation.
I did go through all the cardboard moving boxes. Remember on my William Morris list, I told myself to cull five decor boxes into three? Turns out we had six decor boxes. I did cull them down to four.
I had two full bins of curtains. I purged down to one (extremely full, very heavy) bins of curtains.
I also pulled all the empty Rubbermaid bins. I don't need or want all of these bins, so I pulled out the kind I like, and will be selling the rest.
The pile of stuff front and center will be donated to Goodwill.
The pile of stuff to the left is more papers that need to be gone through.
So! While yes, it does pretty much look the same in that there is still a large pile of junk in my garage, NOW the pile of junk consists of stuff I know I want to get rid of, whereas before, things were stacked willy-nilly all over the place.
Hopefully it won't take me another year to dispose of the stuff in the middle. Anyone a big seller on ebay? I have some things I want to sell but the prospect seems daunting (calculating shipping! Not good at math! Shipping things in a timely manner!)
I'm linking up to Pancakes and French Fries William Morris Project.
Here is what we started with. My goal is to be able to park one car in the garage eventually.
You'll notice large piles of crap all in the middle of the garage.
Here's what it looked like when we were done.
You'll notice large piles of crap in the middle of the garage. Lisa, you are thinking, that looks exactly the same. BUT NO--there are DRAMATIC differences!
Note that this Expedit was originally on the far wall of the garage.
We started by emptying it--and pretty much everything else in the middle of the garage--and dragging it out to the driveway.
On the top of the Expedit we had stored a bunch of unused lamps, and I was worried where we were going to store them after we got rid of the Expedit, but figured it would work itself out.
Yep, it worked itself out. Two more things I don't have to store.
To keep this snoozefest post from getting even more boring, essentially what I did was drag everything out onto the driveway, and everything that I wanted to keep I put back on the far wall. Everything I wanted to get rid of, I dragged back in and put in a large pile of crap in the middle.
Thus, all that stuff in the middle of the garage? Needs to be disposed of via craigslist, ebay or donation.
I did go through all the cardboard moving boxes. Remember on my William Morris list, I told myself to cull five decor boxes into three? Turns out we had six decor boxes. I did cull them down to four.
I had two full bins of curtains. I purged down to one (extremely full, very heavy) bins of curtains.
I also pulled all the empty Rubbermaid bins. I don't need or want all of these bins, so I pulled out the kind I like, and will be selling the rest.
The pile of stuff front and center will be donated to Goodwill.
The pile of stuff to the left is more papers that need to be gone through.
So! While yes, it does pretty much look the same in that there is still a large pile of junk in my garage, NOW the pile of junk consists of stuff I know I want to get rid of, whereas before, things were stacked willy-nilly all over the place.
Hopefully it won't take me another year to dispose of the stuff in the middle. Anyone a big seller on ebay? I have some things I want to sell but the prospect seems daunting (calculating shipping! Not good at math! Shipping things in a timely manner!)
I'm linking up to Pancakes and French Fries William Morris Project.
Progress is progress. I have sold on eBay off & on for the past few years, and it's getting to be a greater PITA. I would say the best tool is a postal scale so you can pre-pack the item & get a more accurate sense of how much it will be to ship. Also, you will be charged a percentage of the sale by both eBay and Paypal, so your "profit" is never as much as it initially seems to be (this was my huge failing with this experiment). Good luck!
ReplyDeleteGood for you! It's important to do all that sorting. My Mom and I ent through her serving dishes yesterday and had a box to donate.
ReplyDeleteOnce I've decided to let go of my stuff, I'm done ith it. Selling is just a huge hassle. We have extortionist postal rates, so e-bay never makes sense...but if an item is saleable, I use the equivalent of a craigslist here. I like cash.
Now the stuff for me to sell is sitting in a bin, waiting for me to get up the chutzpah to go deal with ebay...I have some Pottery Barn curtains that would fetch a bit of money, if I can figure out how to sell them.
ReplyDeleteWhat I love is that I'm not the only one who is keeping a big old stash of curtains just for the day when they just might come back in style. I think I need to dig deep and either sell or donate them. Few years back I did what you did and went through my decor boxes. Can I tell you I hardly decorate for ANY of the holidays anymore and I don't mine one little bit. Not even a little and this is coming from someone one who had enough crap like that to load up an entire truck.
ReplyDeletebut who's william morris? i can work with not understanding how you have so much stuff or how your before and after pics look the same. but I don't understand who the guy is.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking through all you stuff, like I'm at a garage sale. Lot's of potential, Lisa.
ReplyDeleteLmao, as always. I can so relate to this. My garage and the unfinished side of my basement seem to breed boxes of stuff like bunnies. Good job and good luck.
ReplyDeleteOh boy, I have totally been there with this mess. Then after I can't take it anymore I pack up perfectly good stuff and donate it . Even though you think something is worth a lot, it becomes worthless to you, and just an eye sore, so get some tax credit ! Best of luck with this! Hope you get out from under!
ReplyDeleteNancy
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Part 502, I laugh because I live it! "Yep, it worked itself out!" Too funny!
ReplyDeleteI SO get it! And it IS progress! And, I'm not sure what your tax situation is, but I've found it mostly pays more for me to donate stuff and deduct it from my taxes. I get back in dollars what I might have sold most stuff for. Sometimes more, I think. We used craigslist last week because the items were big and we didn't want to deal with getting them to Goodwill ourselves. For donating, I just write a list of what we're dropping off, and then staple it to the receipt, and throw all the receipts in a file folder.
ReplyDeleteYowzahs! What a project! Sounds like you've got a good grip on it now, though. Hopefully you'll be able to get rid of things quickly as well.
ReplyDeleteIf you decide to give some of the stuff away, I'd highly recommend seeing how the Freecycle action is in your area. We have gotten rid of a TON of stuff that was just too low in value to put on ebay due to the amount of stuff you have to do to get it listed. And we figure we should get repaid in good karma very soon. :) It's amazing what people will take if you put it out there! And all you have to do is schedule a time for pickup and field a few emails.
I'm sorry, but I showed this post to my husband to use it to my advantage. "See honey, I really don't have THAT much stuff!" haha, nice progress!
ReplyDelete